Campaigns

From the Amazon to the Mekong, from the great rivers of China to Africa’s Congo River, a wave of big dams threatens some of our last iconic rivers. Because nothing is quite so destructive to a river as a big dam, International Rivers focuses on stopping the worst dam projects in the Global South. We target projects that pose particularly great threats to critical river ecosystems and local communities, and for which there are clearly better alternatives. Browse through our campaigns below, or visit our program pages for complete campaign listings and overviews of our campaign areas.

More than 60 large dams are being planned for the Brazilian Amazon, and neighboring countries Peru, Bolivia and Colombia are planning dams of their own. If built, these projects would dramatically affect the Amazon’s fragile web of aquatic and terrestrial life, as well as displacing tens of thousands of indigenous and river bank communities.

Chinese companies and Chinese banks are now the biggest builders and financiers of global dam building. Chinese banks and companies are involved in some 330 dams in 74 different countries since 2000, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia. International Rivers works with its partners to communicate the experiences of the international movement for "people, water, and life" to new dam financiers and dam builders in China.

Ethiopia is a land of hydrological contrasts. Its uneven, often unpredictable distribution of water greatly impacts its efforts to address poverty. With its huge hydropower potential, Ethiopia is thinking big: it is developing more large dams than any other African nation. But many development analysts believe that large dams are a poor match for reducing Ethiopia's poverty. The nation is highly vulnerable to drought and climate change, which makes a dam boom even riskier.

The dam industry has never embraced the innovative approach of the World Commission on Dams (WCD). The International Hydropower Association in 2007 created the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum (HSAF) to come up with a new approach. The goal of this forum was to develop industry-led sustainability guidelines. The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) was launched in 2011, with no buy-in from dam-affected people or civil society from the Global South.

The revival of plans to build a series of dams on the Mekong River's mainstream in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand presents a serious threat to the river's ecology and puts at risk the wellbeing of millions of people dependent on the river for food, income, transportation and a multitude of other needs. Already serious concerns have been raised by non-governmental organizations and scientists over the Xayaburi Dam, which is at the most advanced stage of development.

As a member of the Consejo de Defensa de la Patagonia (CDP, or Patagonia Defense Council) – a broad coalition of citizens, community groups, and national and international NGOs – we support efforts to protect rivers in Chilean Patagonia.

The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest hydropower project and most notorious dam. The massive project sets records for number of people displaced (more than 1.2 million), number of cities and towns flooded (13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages), and length of reservoir (more than 600 kilometers). The project has been plagued by corruption, spiraling costs, environmental impacts, human rights violations and resettlement difficulties.

Proponents of large dams are hoping to capitalize on concern for climate change, and are promoting a major expansion of hydropower dams on critical rivers in developing countries. But it's the wrong climate for a dam-building boom. Big dams are at huge risk from climate change's impacts on river flows. Healthy rivers are also key to successful climate adaptation. And large reservoirs can be significant sources of greenhouse gases.

The Xayaburi Dam, will block critical fish migration routes for between 23-100 fish species to the Mekong’s upper stretches as far upstream as Chiang Saen in northern Thailand, an important spawning ground for the critically endangered Mekong Giant Catfish. The dam would destroy the river’s complex ecosystems that serve as important fish habitats for local and migratory species. The dam would also block sediment flows in the Mekong River, affecting agriculture as far downstream as the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

The Zambezi River is Southern Africa’s “River of Life.” The fourth largest river system in Africa, it drains seven countries and supports millions of people, who make use of its rich fisheries, forests, water, and rich floodplain soils. The lower Zambezi in Mozambique is the most productive and biologically diverse tropical floodplain in Africa. Yet the Zambezi is also one of the most heavily dammed rivers in Africa, with at least 30 large storage reservoirs holding back its flow.